Le tableau des riches inventions qui sont representees dans le songe de Poliphile

pedantic discourse, whose eloquence is entirely distant from our own. Our language uses fine terms, far from words scratched out of other languages, and gathers natural ways of speaking to declare what is proposed. Certainly, Poliphile would have been awkward and tedious if he had been translated literally. He would have become bothersome and undesirable to those who do not care much for artifice. Following this advice, which I practiced while comparing the books, I have reviewed what the first translators gave us. I corrected what was escaped through oversight. Furthermore, because those first translators were occupied with other affairs, they did not pay attention to everything. They perhaps did not have the same intention for the design as I do. Someone, perhaps in future ages, will imitate my work and, according to the times and moods, will favor it with some novelty.

Besides some notes already remarked upon, I tell you that I have fixed the relationship between the text and the figures. There was a discordance between them due to the fault of the woodcutters original: "tailleurs d'histoires". To help and enlighten those who wish to enter this dream—where everything must be somewhat obscure, because the dreamer was sleeping during the darkness, and dreams are always imperfect—I will deduce for you a part of the Author’s intention and what these diverse projects may cover.

He was a speculative Philosopher of a transcendent spirit. He was full of beautiful imaginations raised above the common level. He aimed for the final point of desirable perfection found in the light of the wise Mercurialistes followers of the wisdom of Hermes and the alchemical path. However, while showing how accomplished he is and how one science leads to another, he appears very little to be an Alchemist. This only appears in the discourse on his lamp, the silk threads, and the spun glass. He does this so secretly that he is almost the secret itself for the sake of keeping the secret. Then, rising in the magnificence of his knowledge, he appears as a Mathematician, Anatomist, Mechanic, and Priest. He is skilled in all mysteries and in these ardors of doctrine. His pen is animated by the beautiful desire that drives him. He scatters beautiful stones of architecture everywhere, all relating to ancient measurements. In this, he is an importunate idolater of antiquity. Then, passing further into the ceremonies he puts forward, he seems to be a follower of the frivolous superstitions of the Pagans.

Because he speaks of these things as a dreamer, there might be some among those of troubled belief—who are too weak in opinion—who would slide into the vain appearance. These people might presume of others according to their own hearts. They might say that he intends to mock holy institutions. On the contrary, by showing the vanity of human fantasies, he plays with idolatries. He takes pleasure in retracing the profane ceremonies with which mortals occupied themselves following vanity. Thus, his intention is to make it appear that

under the shadows of different mysteries where each person stops according to the interest of their heart, one seeks science. One understands what is hidden to those who have no just opinion of what they should revere. Thus, he leads courageous minds to beautiful and intelligible conceptions.

Now, his principal goal, beneath the sense he hides, is architecture. In this, he shows himself a great master. He perhaps did this to hold the attention of those spirits who do not look deeply into objects but are light in their curiosity and do not penetrate beyond the surface. Yet, he still throws out infinite bait to philosophical hearts to goad them into lifting the veils and considering what is beneath. Entering into his subject, he mocks those who take gold for the Philosophical matter. He knows well—and believes that fair-minded people will agree—that the goal of what exists is not the thing that merely tends toward it. Having exaggerated quite covertly, he nevertheless throws himself into praises of the beauty of inanihilable indestructible glass in various places. He interlaces many beautiful works with this glass, twisting them into silk threads imitated after the turns and snares of the Rainceau du Destin Vine of Destiny.

To provide a lure for the cooking of the tincture physicale physical tincture or alchemical elixir, he proposes an endless lamp that burned with rectified eau de vie spirit of wine or alcohol. Then he approaches the truth. Leaving allegories and hieroglyphs behind, he advances to the secret mystery, citing the non-consumable liquor. Who could expand so well on these subjects if they did not have knowledge of them? Who could make so many impossibilities subsist according to human sense if he did not speak of a supernatural work, which is beyond nature within nature?

In truth, if he did not trace this in steganographiques steganographic or hidden terms, under which he veils the unique pleasure of spirits, he would produce too many inept images. Such imaginations would be only frivolous clouds that would evaporate. Since love is victorious over everything, these rarities—which have no analogy with what a craftsman can do—must pass for true under the flames of love. These flames, by leading a bitter life, make everything possible. Without this, he could not make these beautiful monuments exist. He often gives honor for these to antiquity, from which he had learned everything. This appears through the common terms he uses frequently when treating theriaque theriac, a universal antidote, poison, and saffron. He seems very fond of these because they have a great affinity of similarity to the Chemical subject. Saffron is both a venom and a theriac. Just as one sees that many—indeed, too many—Philosophers are poor, so are those who amuse themselves gathering saffron.

Now, Colomne Francesco Colonna, the author made his work by distinguishing it into two books. The first is very long, filled with difficulties and crosses, full of tedious detours and pernicious encounters, serpents, and other horrible objects. This is to demonstrate the lengths of time that pass and the difficult accidents that molest one